that we can know via our ve senses · that we can know external reality ... is generally correctly perceived via our !ve senses Mind Mind Body Mind Body “ ... – Etienne Gilson,

Common sense dictates that we can know

external reality exists and that it is generally correctly perceived

via our five senses

Mind

Mind Body Mind Body

“[According to this view]…the union [of body and soul] is not the congenial union between principles acting together to make up one thing; it is the union of two things, essentially separate in nature. Because the soul and body are not essentially united, there is no essential connection between what the soul knows and what the body knows.” – Frederick Wilhelmsen, Man’s Knowledge of Reality

“Surely whatever I had admitted until now as most true I received either from the senses or through the senses. However, I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.…”

“Surely whatever I had admitted until now as most true I received either from the senses or through the senses. However, I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.…”

“This would all be well and good, were I not a man who is accustomed to sleeping at night…”– René Descartes, Descartes’ Meditations First Philosophy

“Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?…What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”– Morpheus, The Matrix

Cogito ergo sum.I think,

therefore, I am.

Adapted from Dr. Thomas Howe’s Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation

External World

Object in Reality

Thing inItself


External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge

Thing inItself Idea


External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge

Thing inItself Idea

GAPBridging this gap is known

as the Critical

Problem


“[For Hume], our senses are the only tool we have for measuring the world, so we just have to agree to treat whatever beliefs we get from our senses as true. For empiricists, there is no such thing as ‘what the world really looks like’. There is only what the world looks like to you.…Descartes’ challenge – to figure out how to escape the problem of solipsism and establish a set of justified beliefs about the world – has never really been solved, but no one goes around worrying about it.” – UNCG Intro to Philosophy, Summer 2014

“In conclusion, the question ‘How do you know that you know anything?’ is a question that you have to answer before you can start adding beliefs to your worldview. – UNCG Intro to Philosophy, Summer 2014

“Those who hold the mistaken view of ideas as that which each individual directly apprehends – the immediate objects of which each individual is conscious – lock each of us up in the private world of his or her own subjective experience.”– Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes

External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge

Thing inItself Idea



as the Critical

Problem

“It’s a fallen world and I’m a fallen being. So, looking at a fallen creation and trying to interpret that through my eyes, I can’t trust that.”– Ken Ham, TBN Praise the Lord Panel Discussion


“It is easy to be deceived.…Your senses can always be fooled.… Seeing is believing? Seeing is definitely not believing.…I love seeing people of all ages who are trapped by deception discover the freedom that awaits them.…There’s a reason why we’re encouraged to walk by faith not by sight. Because what you see is not always real. What you hear is not always true.” – Harris III, A Master of Illusion: Revealing the Truth…About Lies


“It is easy to be deceived.…Your senses can always be fooled.… Seeing is believing? Seeing is definitely not believing.…I love seeing people of all ages who are trapped by deception discover the freedom that awaits them.…There’s a reason why we’re encouraged to walk by faith not by sight. Because what you see is not always real. What you hear is not always true.” – Harris III, A Master of Illusion: Revealing the Truth…About Lies

“Reason and logic are products of creation, the software our brains use to make sense of things here on this earth. We invented things like science, math and time.…Our ‘logic’ is just a way of feeling our way through this world. In the end, it is a story just like any other.…Reason’s story comes from the mind of humans and faith’s story demonstrates its divine source in the myriad of ways that it defies logic.” – John Wilkinson, A Defense of Skepticism, from a Youth Pastor in RELEVANT Magazine

“[The believer] views logic as rules of thought implanted in man’s mind by the Creator; the [unbeliever] sees logic as the self-sufficient, self-authenticating tool of autonomous man’s reason.…The Christian and non-Christian will take different minds as the final reference point in their own thinking; the believer will use patterns of thought and interpretation provided by God while the unbeliever will derive them from the created world itself (e.g., his own mind).” – Greg Bahnsen, Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended

Mind A Center of Abstract Laws

& Judgements

Mind A Center of Abstract Laws

& Judgements

Body A Center of Sensation

& Perception

“It is only as a man – as a body-soul unity – that he knows things to exist, and he knows this truth as neither postulated nor demonstrated, but as evident. We men know that things exist because we sense and perceive them.…Man, taken as he is – body and soul together – knows what he senses and senses what he knows.”– Frederick Wilhelmsen, Man’s Knowledge of Reality

Ev•i•dent adjective A truth that is immediately grasped once the proposition is seen (cannot be denied or doubted once understood)

Simple Apprehension The first act of the intellect; taking in sense data and abstracting from that data the “whatness” or nature of a thing


therefore, I am.


therefore, I am.

“I think is evidence, but it is not the primary evidence, which is why we get nowhere if we make it our starting point. That things exist is also evidence, the first in order of all the evidence there is, which leads on the one hand to science and on the other to metaphysics. Any sound method will, therefore, take it for its starting point.”– Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism

External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge

Thing inItself Idea


as the Critical Problem


External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge


Form/Matter

Abstracted Form via

the Senses

ModerateRealism

External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge


Form/Matter

Abstracted Form via

the Senses

Knowledge occurs when the formof a thing exists in both

the thing and in the intellect

ModerateRealism

External World

Object in Reality

The Mind

Object of Knowledge


Form/Matter

Abstracted Form via

the Senses

Knowledge occurs when the formof a thing exists in both

the thing and in the intellect

ModerateRealism

JUDGEMENT Second act of the intellect; making

a statement that this thingIS or IS NOT in some way;

“whether” a thing is

“Dreams, illusions, deliriums and hallucinations…are empirically observable conditions, and it is necessary to treat them as such. From the fact that there are heart attacks one may conclude that it is impossible to be sure, a priori, that a given heart is healthy or not, but only a sophist would conclude that it is impossible to tell a healthy heart from a diseased heart.” – Etienne Gilson, Thomist Realism

“Dreams, illusions, deliriums and hallucinations…are empirically observable conditions, and it is necessary to treat them as such. From the fact that there are heart attacks one may conclude that it is impossible to be sure, a priori, that a given heart is healthy or not, but only a sophist would conclude that it is impossible to tell a healthy heart from a diseased heart.” – Etienne Gilson, Thomist Realism

“The false can only be measured by the true.” – Frederick Wilhelmsen, Man’s Knowledge of Reality

CAUSES OF ERROR: Diseased sensation; insufficient evidence; incomplete consciousness; drive of the will towards the good; necessity to act without compelling evidence

“The idealist only finds these illusions so upsetting because he does not know how to prove they are illusions. The realist has no reason to be upset by them, since for him they really are illusions.” – Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism

CAUSES OF ERROR: Diseased sensation; insufficient evidence; incomplete consciousness; drive of the will towards the good; necessity to act without compelling evidence

Reasoning The third act of the intellect; moving from the known to the

unknown via logical reasoning and argumentation

“The human mind cannot have God as its natural and proper object. As a creature, it is directly proportioned only to created being, so much so that instead of being able to deduce the existence of things from God, it must, on the contrary, of necessity rest on things in order to ascend to God.” – Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism

Reasoning The third act of the intellect; moving from the known to the

unknown via logical reasoning and argumentation

“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life…what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us…” – John 1:1, 3 (HCSB)

“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life…what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us…” – John 1:1, 3 (HCSB)

“For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made.” – Rom. 1:20 (HCSB)

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden…” – Gen. 3:8 (HCSB)


“For the eyes of Yahweh roam throughout the earth…” – 2 Chron. 16:9 (HCSB)



“God…people take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.” – Ps. 36:7 (HCSB)




“I [Jesus] am the bread that came down from heaven.” – John 6:41 (HCSB)




“I [Jesus] am the bread that came down from heaven.” – John 6:41 (HCSB)

“A man does not have to be a metaphysician. But he does have to be a man: everything he knows is being…Outside of being he knows nothing, because beyond being…there is nothing to know.”– Frederick Wilhelmsen, Man’s Knowledge of Reality

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that we can know via our ve senses · that we can know external reality ... is generally correctly perceived via our !ve senses Mind Mind Body Mind Body “ ... – Etienne Gilson,